Tag: Sustainability
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Climate Change – The Verdict Is In
United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just published their fifth assessment report and the conclusion is that the global warming is caused by human activity and the scientific evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific body set up in 1988 by the United Nations. It is charged to gather comprehensive scientific assessments of…
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Are we closer to utopia?
Last century, architects and urban planners had to deal with the fact that vehicles were rapidly increasing their presence in cities. To solve the relationship between cars and pedestrians, some proposed to separate them. A relevant example of these urban planners was Clarence Perry, who developed a concept in the early 1900’s called the “Neighborhood Unit”…
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CHASING ICE: A Photographic Evidence of Changing Climate
Chasing Ice is a film documenting the rapidly melting glaciers due to global warming. In 2005 James Balog a renowned photographer, was sent to Arctic to take pictures, which would show the effects of climate change. National Geographic called it The Big Thaw in its June 2007 cover story. While shooting this cover story in the Arctic regions Balog was astounded by the rapid change in glaciers…
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When Planners Take Vacation Pictures
On a recent trip to Germany, I took exactly ONE picture, and it wasn’t of the Brandenburg Gate or the picturesque Rhine Valley but – of an electric car charging station. Mind you, this picture was not taken in any of the major cities but in a mid-sized town of about 250,000 people, in a…
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Amsterdam: The Bicycling Capital of Europe
Amsterdam is the most bicycle friendly city in Europe with 881,000 bikes in a city of 780,559 people. Amsterdam has approximately 280 miles of cycling lanes, and close to 58% of its residents use bicycles on a daily basis, 43% of them are commuting to work by bicycle. There are two reasons why Amsterdam is such a conducive place for bicycle use: Firstly, the topography…
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10 Best Cities for Urban Forests
Urban Forests seem like a contradiction in term. In our minds urban settlements and forests stand far apart at the opposite end of a spectrum. So how can they be brought together in support of each other? Apparently, as cities grow hotter and spew more carbon into the atmosphere the more trees a city needs, a forest…